ForestGarden

On the 12 December GraceWorks is running a Forest Garden learning and planting session at Evington URC

What is a Forest Garden

A Forest Gardening is a way of combining plants and trees together in natural woodland-like patterns. These mutually beneficial relationships create a highly productive system. An established forest garden will give high yields of diverse produce such as fruit, nuts, vegetables, herbs, medicines, fuel, fungi and animal food. Though it takes a lot of energy to design and setup once complete it will take less maintenance than a conventional vegetable garden due to it’s emphasis on perennial plantings and is rich in habitats for beneficial wildlife.

Using mainly perennial plants has many benefits – for a start, they don’t need to be replanted at the beginning of each year! This means that the soil doesn’t have to be dug annually, allowing the cultivation of a rich, healthy, fertile soil, which in turn means healthy plants.

Soil in a forest garden is always kept covered, either by a living ground cover of plants or by mulching any bare ground with organic matter. This keeps the soil fed with nutrients and protects it from erosion, as well as helping to conserve water in the soil, minimising the need for watering.

Below you can hear Tim Smit who created The Eden Project explain Forest Gradens.